What kind of youth culture writing does the "net generation" need?

　　Chen Yishui

　　The youth campus emotion-themed web drama "Secret Love · Oranges in Huainan" recently ended on Mango TV and Tencent Video platforms.

The whole story begins with Luo Zhi’s secret love for Sheng Huainan, and ends with Sheng Huainan’s meaningful “Long time no see” when the two met on Zhenhua Middle School’s alumni sign-in stage many years later, presenting the vast majority of young Chinese The throbbing and youthful sorrow experienced in the secret love experience also ushered in the final curtain call of the original author's August Changan adaptation of the "Zhenhua Trilogy" series.

　　Five years ago, the adaptation of the TV series "The Best of Us" and "Hello, Old Time" of the "Zhenhua Trilogy" had become a hit in the Chinese TV drama market, setting off a boom in the creation of the "Campus Sweet Pet Drama".

However, whether it is "Cracking Orange in Huainan" broadcast by Tencent Video in 2019, or "Cracking in Orange in Huainan" which has just ended, it is more similar to the youth dramas that have emerged in recent years, and unfortunately cannot continue in terms of artistic quality. The myth of "Zhenhua IP".

　　The past glory and end of the "Zhenhua Trilogy" has a resonant fate with the Chinese youth art market since the 21st century.

So after the "Zhenhua Trilogy", what kind of youth culture writing do we expect or need?

"Zhenhua Trilogy" Starts the Domestic "Campus Sweet Pet Drama" Mode

　　The so-called "Zhenhua Trilogy" originated from the youth novels "The Best of Us", "Mary Su Case Report", "Tangerine Life Huainan · Secret Love" published in August by Chang'an since 2009. It is about the boys and girls of Zhenhua Middle School. A series of campus past events in the youth era.

The author is known for his rhetorical and delicate brushwork, and has cultivated a large number of readers and fans. His adaptation of the TV series "The Best of Us" and "Hello, Old Times" have also become "popular dramas" one after another, setting off a "campus sweet pet drama" "Creative wave.

　　Previously, my country’s youth literary and artistic creation was mainly based on the literary market. Thanks to the new concept composition contest held by the Chinese youth original literary magazine "Sprout", excellent "post-80s" have since come to the fore, and their works often have strong "Cruel youth" color.

With the popularization of the Internet, the rapid rise of Jinjiang Literature City and Starting Point Chinese Network has urged writers to change their writing concepts, reader preferences, and work styles toward popularization and popularization, which has also affected the aesthetics of youth TV dramas.

　　As early as 2012, Hunan Satellite TV took the lead in launching the "Youth Sunday" theater (later renamed "Youth Progress"), and Mango TV has also become an important output platform for youth dramas with "Tornado Girl" and "Pretty Li Huizhen".

In 2014, the Sohu video self-produced drama "The Year in a Hurry" adapted from the network novel of the same name by Jiuyewei, formally set off a wave of "small and fresh" youth drama creation, and TV dramas began to replace literature as an important market for youth art.

　　In this context, in 2016, the self-produced iQiyi drama "The Best of Us" adapted from the August Chang'an novel of the same name received more than 3 billion views with its true campus nostalgia; the following year, Shenzhen Satellite TV and Aiqi The "Hello, Old Times" jointly broadcast by Yitai.com further exerted its strength, thus creating the myth of "Zhenhua IP".

　　The success of "Zhenhua Trilogy" on the screen created a more clear style of "Campus Sweet Pet Drama" than the previous "Little Fresh" youth drama, namely: campus life, nostalgic culture, and ignorant emotions.

The superposition of the three is formally distinguished from the urban youth inspirational drama represented by Zhao Baogang’s "Youth Trilogy" in the early years, and has become the mainstream aesthetic of contemporary youth TV dramas, which quickly aroused the "post-80s", "post-90s" and even "post-00s". "The growth resonance.

"Secret Love · Orange Birth in Huainan": About the little thing about secret love

　　As a "campus sweet pet drama", "Crush Love · Orange Life in Huainan" (hereinafter referred to as "Orange Life in Huainan", specifically refers to the 2021 version), neither has the "cruel youth" abortion, derailment and other dog-blood plots of earlier years, but also fresh There are urban workplace content, but positioned as adolescence between ignorant childhood and adult society, reflecting the positive feelings and psychological growth of most young people.

　　However, unlike the first two works of the "Zhenhua Trilogy", the focus of the original novel is subjective lyricism, which expresses the high-cold and intelligent heroine Luo Zhi's concern and secret love mentality for Xueba School Cao Sheng Huainan. ; And "The Best of Us" and "Mary Su Case Report" (TV series titled "Hello, Old Times") focus on narrative, telling the vivid campus experiences of the heroes and heroines.

Therefore, the way of describing youth with the subjective feeling of secret love makes it a more unique part of the "Zhenhua Trilogy".

　　Whether it is literary creation or daily life, the trivial matter of secret love is the most common and the most difficult to describe, especially in the creation of TV dramas in the field of popular culture, how to present sweet but not greasy and avoid the embarrassing situation of "puppy love"? This sense of proportionality is a test of the creator's control over the image narrative.

　　For example, in the narrative space where the heroes and heroines speak for the first time in "Orange Born in Huainan", Luo Zhi and Sheng Huainan have one room in the dark and the other outdoors in the light. It seems that the preface does not follow the question and answer of the latter, and it is permeated with the youthful sentiment of wanting to say but rest and full of fantasy, making the small matter of secret love not only belong to Luo Zhi’s personal imagination, but also give Sheng Huainan the role in addition to school grass. Beyond the image of the tyrant, there is more room for play, adding a touch of "sweetness" that is unique to the youth campus, and also paves the way for the two to meet in the university.

　　In addition to Luo Zhi and Sheng Huainan, the drama also depicts the bright-character portraits of college students such as Zhang Mingrui, Jiang Baili, and Gobi. These characters also show different degrees of growth in their respective clue plots, and jointly describe the youth where happiness and trouble coexist. story.

　　But as the so-called "sweet love for success, sweet love for failure", when the narrative is based on the very subjective and highly personal psychological emotions of crush, it also causes the lack of motivation for the plot and the lack of logic in character behavior. Rationality and other issues.

　　For example, in terms of character creation, Luo Zhi had a crush for fifteen years just because he met Sheng Huainan when he was a child. There is really no emotional foundation. As a secret love party, Luo Zhi, who has always been introverted and tolerant, will suddenly It is even more against the logic of character behavior to give a love letter by hand.

In the art setting, the decoration of the university dormitory space actually resembles the fresh literary tones of male, blue and female powder that can only exist in aristocratic schools, which greatly reduces the credibility of campus life in the story.

Looking at the images and sounds, there are a lot of over-modified whitening filters, overloaded narration, background lyrical music that often fills the entire episode, and the dissolving transition editing method, which seriously affects the narrative rhythm and reduces the drama. Set as the aesthetic quality of audiovisual art.

　　In fact, this is not a problem with the drama "Oranges in Huainan", but is shared by many "youth campus sweet pet dramas" that have followed the trend in recent years.

The youth drama market, which is oriented by capital flow and tailored to the aesthetic preferences of the audience, has led to the homogenization of single plots, thin characters, and solidified story models at the drama level, coupled with insufficient plot driving force, and separation from reality. And other artistic issues have caused the audience's aesthetic fatigue.

　　It is worth noting that Hunan Satellite TV, which was the first to open a youth drama channel, suddenly announced in February this year that the "Youth Progression" theater will be terminated and replaced by the "Monsoon Theater", which focuses on suspense dramas with strong stories and compact plots. The "Campus Sweet Pet Drama" is losing its platform advantages and its cultural market.

The fundamental reason for the decline of the sweet pet drama lies in the creator's own creative concept

　　So, do we no longer need youth literary works?

　　The answer is of course no.

Any healthy cultural market requires literary and artistic works of diverse types and themes, and any historical period requires a youthful writing style that belongs to a generation.

　　From the "youth without regrets" at the beginning of the reform and opening up in the 1980s, to the "cruel youth" that recorded the confusion of individuals under the market economy wave in the early 21st century, to the "sweet pet youth" in the context of China's economic rise. It reflects the changes of the times in China's economy and social culture.

　　The fundamental reason for the decline of the "Youth Campus Sweet Pet Drama" today is the creator's own creative concept, which has something to do with the fragmented and spectacle fast-food creative mode in recent years.

In other words, whether it is youth literature or film and television works, they pay too much attention to the huge profits brought by traffic, but essentially ignore the aesthetic pursuit of art itself.

　　As early as the beginning of the 21st century, when the famous Chinese writer and literary critic Bai Ye faced the emergence of writers born in the 1980s, they believed that their writing was not youth literature, but a cultural phenomenon. They only expressed themselves in words. non-self-consciously literary, and reminded the then young author: "in the current social environment, a book or fame is not difficult, but that does not mean success literary recognition and literature do not be fooled by the media hype. , Let alone be perplexed by the immediate interests.” Now twenty years have passed, and today when the media has changed drastically, this reminder is still of great warning significance.

　　No matter how the trend of the mass culture market changes, I hope that Chinese youth literary and artistic creators will still be able to create realistic and historical creations under the impetuous environment of "flow is king", using artistic aesthetics as the standard and cultural value expression as the pursuit. The works of emotional and humanistic care truly tell the youth story of contemporary Chinese young people.

　　(The author is a postdoctoral fellow in art theory and a young scholar from Beijing Normal University Zhong Ying)